


The Stranger in the House

by Repeatinglitanies



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don't copy to another site, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-10-26 01:37:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20734118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Repeatinglitanies/pseuds/Repeatinglitanies
Summary: When Vanya’s former husband took everything from her, she was left with no other option but to allow guests to come into her home. They all came and went. And then, a green-eyed stranger arrived





	1. Chapter 1

When Vanya’s former husband took everything from her, she was left with no other option but to allow guests to come into her home. Briar Rose Manor, which she had inherited from a great-uncle she had never even met, was all she had left in this world. 

Vanya had no family. Her birth parents died long before she even gained the ability to remember their faces, leaving photos and an inheritance that Vanya only had access to when she turned thirty according to the peculiar wishes of her parents’ will. And Harold proved to be a liar and a thief. At first, she had thought him a kind and charming man. Someone who saw her as something more than a sad little orphan. Harold told her that she was a talented individual, someone special and the sole person who could light up his world.

And to her eternal shame and regret, she believed him. So it was that Vanya became so caught up in her romance, or what she thought of as a romance, that she barely noticed people she could have called friends slowly but surely disappearing from her life. Harold took up most of her time. When she wasn’t practicing with the orchestra or teaching her students, Vanya was with Harold.

Being her first actual relationship, Vanya didn’t see anything strange about it. In hindsight, it should have. 

Because as soon as she accepted his marriage proposal, she began to see a different side to Harold. When out in public, he seemed to still be the easygoing, nice guy she fell in love with. But behind closed doors, Harold began to be critical of everything: what she ate, what she wore and who she spent time with when he wasn’t around. He would even get jealous of Vanya’s students, none of whom were any older than ten years old.

Thinking about the children she used to teach brought a pang of sorrow and longing. Because that was one of the greatest things she missed of her old life, the life before she married Harold. As much as she wanted to believe that her present predicament was all Harold’s doing, Vanya couldn’t help but blame herself as well.

Some of her students were actually passionate about pursuing a career with the violin and would message her for advice outside of their designated lesson time. Harold told her not to bother answering, to reserve it for actual times she would meet her students face to face. But Vanya wanted to help. She didn’t see it as a bother at all to dispense advice to aspiring musicians. 

In fact, it was one of the few times she felt within her element. Vanya would be lying if she said she wasn’t flattered of the children’s high opinion of her.

She found out soon enough that Harold did not tolerate disobedience. 

The first time he hit her would have been a shock if it hadn’t caused her to immediately lose consciousness. When she woke up in the hospital, he was all sympathy and apologies. He seemed so sincere that she forgave him. 

Somehow, with no small effort, Vanya convinced herself into thinking it was all an accident. So even when one of the nurses took advantage of Harold’s absence and asked her point blank if Vanya needed help getting away from her fiancee, Vanya denied the existence of any abuse.

After all, Harold apologized and promised it would never happen again. So Vanya believed it would be the last time.

It turned out only to be the first time. Harold was always so sorry afterwards. So what else could she have done but forgive him? 

The point of no return came when Harold asked him to quit her job at the orchestra and to stop teaching. The “request” came not long after she inherited the manor from her departed great uncle.

A stronger woman would have had enough and told Harold to go to hell. A better one would have called off the engagement. Her music and her students were the highlights of her current life, aside from Harold when he was in a good mood. Harold knew that and wanted to deprive her of anything that didn’t concern him.

A part of her recognized that side of Harold even then. But at the time, Harold had become the center of her world. When they first started living together, everything revolved around him because he gave her joy. But soon after, it became more about learning how to gauge when it was safe to speak or act. At a certain point, she realized she had spent every waking moment thinking of how it would affect Harold.

So when Harold asked, more like demanded, that she leave the orchestra and stop teaching, Vanya felt she had no choice but to obey. This was both to make him happy and to give him no excuse to hurt her. 

After a much too brief courthouse marriage without family or friends in attendance, they moved into Briar Rose Manor. It was surrounded by miles of forest. And the location only added a new facet to Vanya’s loneliness. Harold was with her almost all the time. But given how she would need to watch her words and movements carefully when around him, how she was miles away from anyone other than Harold, she felt even more cut off from the rest of the world than when she was an orphan living in a new city and in a new apartment.

Vanya didn’t even have the comfort of her violin. 

Ever since relocating to the Manor, Harold decided that the two of them should devote their time into renovating the place. What they couldn’t do by themselves were outsourced to contractors paid for by Vanya’s inheritance.

If it wasn’t for a freak storm, Vanya would have allowed Harold to use her until the very end. But the winds turned out to be strong enough to uproot a tree which broke through the glass of Harold’s private office, a room that Vanya wasn’t allowed in even if she was the one who technically owned it.

Harold happened to be inside when this happened and was almost crushed by the weight of the tree. 

It was a miracle the emergency hotline was still working. Soon after, the storm had abated enough to allow an ambulance to come through. EMTs took Harold to the hospital while Vanya stayed in the house to gather necessities.

Knowing how Harold wouldn’t want the things in his office to be left to the elements, Vanya took the initiative to try to save what she could. Looking back, perhaps it was the worst idea. Or the best idea she ever had in years. 

Because that was where and when she finally saw the truth about Harold. 

She found his files. Reams and reams of papers all about her. Who she was, where she was from, what she liked. And what she stood to inherit.

Vanya should have left him then. Contacted a lawyer to draw up divorce papers. Or at the very least confronted him before he fully recovered from his injuries.

Instead, she spent the time trying to defend him, even to herself. But at a certain point, she couldn’t deny the truth that was staring her right in the face.

Harold approached her for her money. He didn’t see anything special in Vanya herself. He only saw what he could gain by a close association with her.

But by the time she finally managed to summon the courage to confront him, it was far too late. He had managed to take everything from her. Everything but the house.

So she had to let guests stay in her house. At first, she didn’t mind as much. The first guests to arrive were young families with young children that brought laughter into the once all too silent house. Vanya had a way of blending into the background as well as being too reserved to the point of being seen as a little anti-social. Hence she knew it was partly her fault why the parents barely acknowledged her.

But she didn’t mind much. Because at least the children talked to her and she would show them how to play the violin, something she wasn’t very successful at because Harold took her violin. And she had no actual instrument to practice on.

Vanya knew that it was a little inappropriate to interact with children without their parents’ knowledge or consent. But she had become so lonely, starved for the smallest bit of attention and affection that she would take them from anywhere and anyone she could.

Vanya knew how pathetic it sounded. But there it was. 

The first time she truly got acquainted with the first set of children: a boy and his younger sister, she was humming the tune of “Think of Me” from the Phantom of the Opera.

She had been so lost in thought that she only realized that she had an audience when she heard the children clapping. 

Ever since Harold, Vanya couldn’t find it in herself to leave the house. So she relied on the children and their parents for news of the outside world. The children would bring her flowers, sticks and oddly-shaped stones from their forays to the nearby woods. They would regale her with their adventures, their friends, and the various things they learned in school.

For what happened in the nearby towns, cities and counties, Vanya had no choice but to eavesdrop on the parents. She wasn’t proud of that. But given everything that happened, her options were limited.

At least they never caught her at it. And so life continued this way for a short while until the parents found out that the children had been talking to her. Before Vanya knew it, the family’s bags were packed and all she could do was wave goodbye to the children who could only bid their farewells from the backseat of their family’s car as it swiftly made its way out her gates.

It broke her heart to see them go. The children reminded her of her own students back in the city and of all the things she threw away in favor of what she thought was true love.

But there was nowhere else for her to go. So she stayed in her house.

Not long after, new families came to stay. But like the one before them, they never stayed long. 

At a certain point, Vanya had lost count of the number of families that came and went. But there came a time when no more families visited. Instead, there were men and women who totally ignored her protests when they set up their cameras and machines around her house, all without her permission.

Again, it was brought home to her that she was powerless to stop them. So despite her resentment, she stood quietly by as her home was invaded by people she was surprised to dislike on sight. After all, Vanya was used to being disregarded. And even after Harold, she still couldn’t find the strength to stand up for herself.

That all changed the night her least favorite guests decided to turn on their machines, which blasted out an ear-splitting noise making her head spin, making her remember all the painful things she had tried to forget.

Vanya didn’t know what came over her. But she found the power to drive these rude interlopers away. She smashed their cameras and even threw whatever portable gadget was on one of the men’s hand. This ended up breaking the glass of her window. Vanya winced at that and regretted it.

But at least, her “guests” finally left her and her house alone. They never came back again.

And for a long while, no one came to visit.

That is, until the Stranger came. Why she would name him a stranger from the get-go when all her past guests were just as unfamiliar to her, she couldn’t say for certain. Only that it was the first thing that came to mind.

He was a striking man with green eyes and a strong jaw. The type of face that could turn heads, Vanya’s head being one of them. But she quickly dismissed that notion. Vanya was never a great beauty. She had never garnered that sort of attention and never will. The only reason Harold ever approached her was because he knew of her inheritance.

And she knew that the Stranger was way out of her league. 

Like all her other guests, he paid her no mind. Just went up to his room to deposit his bags.

Strangely enough, he didn’t park his car properly before doing so. Vanya could hear the car engines still running even as he descended the steps. She had thought that he had somewhere else he needed to be and only made this pitstop to leave his bags. But then he drove the car to the shed right behind the manor.

What Vanya would give to finally have the strength to leave her house. But all she could do was spy on him from the windows. And from there, she witnessed him remove two large trunks. One of which she could have sworn was moving and had a hole for breathing. 

Was he keeping some sort of animal in there? She never got to find out. Hauling both trunks weren’t much trouble for the Stranger. And from what Vanya could see, he didn’t spend too long inside the shed before he closed the door and locked it, taking the key with him.

For the first time in a while, a feeling of dread came to the pit of her stomach. What sort of person had she allowed into her home?

_______________

There was something very wrong with the guest in her home. But to what extent? Vanya had to find out. She had to look at what was inside the shed.

For once, she was happy for how naturally she blended into the background. Vanya waited until she heard the tell-tale breathing that she recognized to be indicative of a person asleep. And very carefully, she opened the door to the Stranger’s room.

Vanya hoped that he left the key somewhere within easy reach. When she got a hold of it, she would somehow try to get to the shed.

That plan sounded weak to her. She’s never had the courage to take a step out of her house in- in a long time. This was much too soon. She needed time to prepare. If she took the key now and failed to take a peek at the shed, then she would jeopardize her plan. She couldn’t keep the key indefinitely to wait until such time she felt strong enough to go outside. The Stranger was sure to use it soon, if only to check up on whatever he hid in the shed. And if he found the key missing, then he’d know there was only one person who could have possibly taken it.

Hence, Vanya decided to abandon her plan. She would try it another time when she was sure she could really find it in herself to get out of the house. Vanya was about to close the bedroom door behind her when she heard the Stranger’s voice.

“Looking for something?”

There was no one else he could be talking to but her. So she slowly turned around to find him in his pyjamas, both feet firmly planted on the floor. She could tell he was about to stand up to take a step towards her. 

Vanya’s first instinct was to run. But then she remembered how she drove a room full of men and women from her house (that may have been an exaggeration as there were only a handful of them but at least she was able to do that to more than one person). And that gave her a bit of confidence that she could do it again.

So she stood her ground.

The Stranger turned on the lights. And for the first time, Vanya saw more than a poker face. There was a little shock there. And...recognition?

“It’s you! You waited for me.”

The Stranger took her hand. His expression seemed to light up in joy. The touch of his warm fingers was alien but not wholly unpleasant. Vanya found that she wouldn’t mind him holding her close for the rest of her life. But she soon snapped herself out of it.

This was crazy. She didn’t know this man. The only reason she could possibly welcome his touch was because she had long been without companionship. 

The man in front of her must have noticed the stiffening of her posture. Because he quickly let go. 

“You don’t recognize me, don’t you?”

Vanya shook her head.

“Please. Stay here. Let me show you something.”

Vanya didn’t know how she missed it. But he had a violin case with him. Soon enough, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor filled the room. 

That was when she recognized him. Even though the logical side of her brain told her it was impossible. But she recognized the style and the technique.

It was Quentin. Her student, Quentin. But that’s impossible! He was just ten years old when he begged her to stay in the city, to wait for him to become an adult.

At the time, she brushed it off as a harmless crush some students get for a young teacher. But there had always been a part of her that sensed Quentin was serious.

However, this was crazy. The man in front of her was not a ten year old boy.

“Quentin plays like that. But he’s ten! You can’t be him.”

The man only looked at her in sadness. 

“Vanya, it’s me. You’re the reason I came. When I heard what happened to you, I was devastated. I wanted to kill your asshole husband. I was planning something special for him when I heard reports about you.”

Vanya was confused. Nothing Quentin said made sense.

“What are you talking about?”

“Vanya, Harold killed you. You’ve been haunting this place for years. But it’s all right now. Because I’m here.”


	2. Chapter 2

By some twist of fate, Quentin first met Vanya on the day he (then a seven year old child) decided he would no longer listen to his violin instructor. Thus, when said instructor, who had the knack for hitting him with a small, thin stick whenever he got a note wrong, excused herself to go to the toilet, Quentin took the chance to sneak out. 

As he had no plans to ever take up the violin ever again, he left the prized instrument his father had said cost more money than it would take to feed an Asian village. It was Dad’s idea for him to pick up the violin anyway. According to the old man who adopted him, there have been studies that showed how learning to play a musical instrument could actually improve his prodigious skills with numbers

But Quentin begged to differ. As far as he was concerned, his talent needed no improvement. Not with music, anyway. That further solidified when he met his new tutor purported to be the best in the country. According to the miserable old coot who was said to have nurtured countless violin prodigies, her secret to bringing her pupils to the heights of their abilities lay with discipline. 

She kept them focused and motivated on the end goal. And since she was a violin teacher, the end goal was for the students to be world-renowned musicians that would bring her further glory down the road, earning her acclaim for having taught these prodigies during their formative years.

Even at a young age, Quentin knew Mrs Harding was nothing more than a sad, old hag who had delusions of grandeur. Sure, she taught him the correct way to handle the instrument and to read the notes. But they both knew that most of the hard work relied on him. Just as most of her precious prodigies’ accomplishments were mostly theirs alone, having little to do with her tutelage.

The woman had clippings of her previous students’ successes hung on her walls. But none of her own. There were even some pictures of her with famous students winning some sort of awards. But Quentin could see from the photos that the students weren’t comfortable with her. It wasn’t immediately visible. However, unlike most visitors that only saw a sought-after violin teacher, Quentin knew what he was looking for. 

Because like his adopted father, Mrs Harding didn’t even like children. But for some reason, both relied on children to bring about their life’s work. 

Quentin had no desire to play the violin for the rest of his life. However long that may be. So he didn’t appreciate being made to waste time practicing a musical instrument that took time away from his beloved maths.

It should have come as no surprise to anyone that he showed no sign of improvement over the weeks he started learning from Mrs Harding. He didn’t bother practicing. Reginald operated under the assumption that Quentin didn’t need the reminder. And in fact, that was true. Quentin knew what was expected of him. He just didn’t want to.

The only reason he even bothered picking up the violin during his sessions with the woman was to insult her with the screeching he teased out of the instrument. But Mrs Harding was no fool. She immediately saw what his antics were about: defiance. So she resorted to corporal punishment.

It wasn’t a big stick by any means. Just a thin, reedy looking one that stung his hands when it made contact. To his shame, he was shocked into compliance the first few sessions this happened. No one. Not even Reginald Hargreeves ever hit him before. In fairness, Reginald didn’t need a stick to make seven-year old Quentin to follow orders. The old man just needed to stare at him with his cold, hard eyes.

But the stick was a novelty that Quentin had yet to build a defense for. So the punishment continued for far longer than Quentin would have cared for. He didn’t bother reporting Mrs Harding to his father because even at seven years old, it was clear that Reginald didn’t care as long as Quentin came out of the lesson in one piece. 

So against Quentin’s wishes, his playing actually improved. To his consternation, he actually enjoyed the music that came out when he was taking it seriously. He just hated Mrs Harding and having to share the same space as her.

Before long, his loathing of the old woman overtook his fear of punishment. So one day, he decided to skip right in the middle of lessons. Besides, he concluded that Mrs Harding had served her purpose. It was time to appreciate music on his own.

So he went to the Icarus Theater right across the street from Mrs Harding’s building. All Quentin knew was that the city orchestra played here. And he was hoping to hear them practice. Had he been older, he would have wondered why no one was around to stop him from going in. As it turned out, the Theater was supposed to be closed and the Orchestra wasn’t playing. The only reason he got in was because someone left the door open and the guard watching the theater went to the toilet the same instant Quentin came in.

But at the time, he was just seven years old. Quentin had yet to learn that the world did not revolve around his wishes. By a stroke of sheer luck and for that day, at least, he got what he wanted.

The lights shone on the stage as soon as he got in and took a seat nearest the door. There was someone on stage with a violin. But he was too far away to get a close look at the person though he did think it was a girl. Not his age. But certainly not as old as Dad or Mrs Harding.

She didn’t appear to notice him. For what seemed like a long time, she just stood there. 

Quentin was about to stand up and leave in disappointment when the first clear notes came out and swept him away. Some time later, he would learn that what he heard was a medley of songs from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Phantom of the Opera.” 

Truth be told, he didn’t really care what the music was called. Because all he could focus on was the woman in front of him, playing the violin masterfully. When she finished, he heard someone shout: “Bravo” only to realize it was him.

That same day, Reginald fired Mrs Harding for how easily she lost Quentin. And with promises from Quentin that he would improve himself, the old man hired Vanya Hargreeves, who was pleased but a little befuddled with suddenly having a new student.

Quentin was surprised that they had the same last name. But at first chalked it up to coincidence until years later when he found out that Vanya was actually a distant relative of the old man’s. Quentin wouldn’t be surprised if Reginald knew of this connection but chose to act as if he didn’t. If the old man could act so coldly towards his own adopted children, it wasn’t a big leap in logic to expect him to treat a girl he barely knew any better.

_______________

It was on the tip of Vanya’s tongue to deny Quentin’s assertions. According to him, she had been dead all this time. But it seemed that a statement of fact was all it took to retrieve her lost memories.

She remembered being full of rage the day she confronted Harold for his duplicity. 

Initially, when she found out about Harold’s papers about her, she tried to explain it away. For a while, it had worked. Vanya had been deceiving herself for a long time on the kind of man she had married. And it wasn’t too hard to maintain the illusion. She had years of practice, after all. 

Then, Harold recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital to beat her again. 

She might as well have taken Harold’s hospital room. And it was in the midst of her recovery from this recent beating that she was forced to revisit what she discovered the day the storm hit. 

And Vanya honestly couldn’t believe how stupid she had been all along. Finally, she sought help. Vanya had been given an address to local women’s shelter. Out of fear for Harold’s reaction, she decided to wait quietly until his guard was down to leave him. This only came when she was back at Briar Rose House.

But things never did go as she planned. Vanya had secretly packed a bag on the day Harold was was set to visit the nearby town. But for some reason, he canceled to spend the day with her.

In another display of his “sincere” albeit spontaneous remorse, Harold again apologized, even sought to appease her and play on her sympathies by recalling the story of first seeing her. 

Knowing the depths of his deceit, Vanya felt the outrage overtaking her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had decided it was the last time this man would lie to her face. 

Vanya disregarded her survival instincts and spewed out the truth that she knew Harold had been keeping.

That was the moment that sealed her fate. Her time with Harold gave her a bit of a premonition as regards to when he would start being violent. But her indignation overrode her caution when she should have known better. Vanya had trained herself to watch out for the telltale signs. And to a certain point, she did.

Unfortunately, she underestimated his reaction. Vanya expected his blows. But she figured that she’d get back up again once it was over. That’s what had happened before during the countless times she had been subjected to his physical abuse. However, in this, she was wrong. Fatally so. Because he didn’t stop hitting her until she sighed her very last breath.

——————-

It was clear to Quentin that he had turned Vanya’s world upside down.

But being the remorseless bastard he was, Quentin still couldn’t help but feel happy to be able to see and talk to her again. It had been so long. 

He was now around her age. At least, the age she had been when he last saw her in the flesh. But she looked almost the same as that last time when he came to say goodbye (and also unsuccessfully try to convince her to stay).

Vanya was the first ghost he had ever encountered. But in this house and in his presence, she wasn’t an apparition that threatened to blink out of sight.

She looked no different than any other living woman. And the part of him that was no different from any other heterosexual male would have been ogling her. 

But then he noticed her delicate face suddenly marred with distress. Her slight frame immediately sympathizing by hunching over.

She was reliving the worst and final moments of her life.

A part of him wanted to take her pain unto himself if it meant that she didn’t have to experience it. While the other part promised to make Harold suffer a hundredfold. It was something he could keep, after all.

Quentin reached out to take Vanya in his arms. But just as soon as he confirmed that her form was solid to him, Quentin found himself thrown across the room. 

Clearly, Vanya was a powerful spirit, able to harness and utilize energy. She even looked magnificent with all that light surrounding her.

Those were Quentin’s last thought before blacking out.

——————-

Worry was a mild word for what Vanya was feeling at the moment. She didn’t know how. But she had somehow managed to hurt Quentin. Seeing him thrown to the wall and then subsequently crumpled on the ground was enough to snap her out of despair-laden stupor. 

Quentin had been one of her favorite students. Even as a child he had taken everything so seriously. And perhaps that was one of the things that made him stand out. That, and the obvious crush he had on her even then.

But Quentin wasn’t a child anymore. In fact, he looked to be in his late twenties, maybe his early thirties at the oldest. 

How long had she been...stuck in this house? Vanya knew she wasn’t alive. But she still couldn’t bring herself to truly accept that she...wasn’t among the living anymore.

Because if that was true (and a part of her knew it was), she had placed her faith and her very life in the hands of a man who was a fraud from the very start. And that meant she had been pathetic until the very end. Vanya lived and died without anyone who really cared for her.

But that wasn’t exactly true, was it?

Quentin mentioned coming to this house for her. And planning something for Harold. 

Had he mourned her all this time?

The man who was once her student was still unconscious on the ground. Vanya tried to lift him up. And to her relief, her touch connected. Unfortunately, he was too heavy for her. 

Vanya tried waking him up but to no avail. And when she tried to steady herself by leaning on the wall in another attempt to get him up, Vanya ended up with her ass on the floor and Quentin’s head somehow nestled on her chest.

Where was that power that knocked Quentin out in the first place? It would have been useful right about now. But Vanya didn’t have a clue on how to summon that show of power, let alone a much more concentrated focus on getting Quentin on the bed.

So all she could do was wait for her erstwhile student to wake up. All while trying not to enjoy the feel of another person’s warmth seeping into her. 

Quentin grew up to be a handsome man. 

She didn’t know how much time she had spent just looking at him. Vanya was a ghost after all. And time seems to have lost all meaning when one’s time has stopped.

______________

Unbeknownst to Vanya, Quentin had been awake since her first unsuccessful attempt to lift him. He felt no guilt in the deception. Because he just wanted an excuse to be close to her for a little longer.

He never imagined he would get to see her face to face, let alone be able to touch her.

Vanya had always felt more comfortable around children. So it wasn’t a surprise that she would show herself to them.

Quentin was no longer a child. But he had an affinity for Vanya herself. For years since he had found out about her death, he had surrounded himself with Vanya’s possessions. Anything and everything he could get his hands on.

Including what he hid in the shed.

He knew he’d have to open his eyes and tell Vanya about the trunks in the shed eventually. But for now, he just wanted to enjoy a quiet moment with her.

Quentin tried to convince himself it would be enough even while knowing that it wasn’t and never would be.


End file.
